Bipartisanship? Wassat?!?!

Most students think Democrats are proenvironment and Republicans opposed.

That was not true in the past. Pres Theodore Roosevelt, "Teddy", was one of the biggest environmentalists in US history.

In my Coastal Policy class We study the first big surge of environmental laws in the United States. Everyone is surprised that Republican Richard Nixon and a bipartisan coalition of Democrats and Republicans were responsible for these laws:

"New Years Day, 1970, President Nixon signed into law the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Among other things, it required that federal agencies conduct thorough assessments of the environmental impact of all major programs. (This provision, duplicated ultimately at state and local levels across America, remains a cornerstone of environmental law.)" http://www.nrdc.org/legislation/helaw.asp

The first Earth Day was in 1970 as well.

Here are more Nixon laws:

"The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, commonly known as the Clean Water Act. From these laws there evolved a large body of environmental case law. Subsequent federal legislation, notably the Consumer Product Safety Act (1972), the Environmental Pesticide Control Act (1972), the Endangered Species Act (1973), the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974) ..." from NRDC web site.

So what's happened? Why do with think of Republicans as being so opposed to environmental action. Stay tuned!

Information Technology and Voting

From press release.

"The arrival of Information technology promises to completely upend traditional voting regulation and make most voting laws obsolete," according to Dr Steffen schmidt, prof of pol sci at Iowa State University, who teaches Electronic Democracy and Identity Theft classes.

"The emerging and merging media mean that voters will be bombarded by campaign material that is almost impossible to detect and truly impossible to regulate such as advertisements and voting appeals delivered to voters through devices such as smart phones, PDA's, iPods and other devices, "said Schmidt. "This effectively means that campaigns or issue advocacy groups can drive messages including short video clips to voters 24-7 including on the day of the election and inside the voting stations which would violate laws against last minute campaigning in or near polling places."

Schmidt added that even if official campaigns are not doing so "viral campaigning", where people pass on information and links to each other through devices will deliver millions of clever and entertaining messages through you Tube, MySpace, FaceBook and other means. "There is absolutely no way to control this free speech without throwing the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee out the window", said Schmidt.